Andre Miller dribbles with the speed of a septuagenarian with a shopping cart, lost among the overwhelming options of canned soup.

He dribbles droopy. Almost uninterested. But then, the Nuggets’ elderly point guard will spot an opening, and suddenly he’s stealth, slithering his body into the paint. When he goes to score, it isn’t with some emphatic slam, but simply a time-stopping finger flip or a time-honored lay-in off the backboard, which looks like a set shot headed for a peach basket.

“Andre isn’t fast, doesn’t jump well and isn’t a very good shooter, but he’s as strong as an ox,” said former NBA guard Steve Kerr, one of the TNT broadcasters for Sunday’s All-Star Game in Houston. “And he uses that strength to get in the lane, where he has an assortment of dribble moves, pump fakes and pivot moves that get him where he wants to go.”

Andre Lloyd Miller turns 37 in March. But he remains a vital player for the Nuggets. Through the first two months of the season, before the surge of Ty Lawson and Danilo Gallinari, coach George Karl called him Denver’s most valuable player. Utilizing an old-school approach, the veteran point guard is crafty and effective, averaging 25.6 minutes, 8.9 points and 5.8 assists.

Yes, he might shoot the 3-pointer more often than Karl (and definitely fans on Twitter) would like. But he has proved to be one of the elite role players in the league, with a skill set of a different era.

“I’ve played in a million rec centers, and there’s always a guy just like him,” said Nuggets assistant coach Melvin Hunt. “Clever. Never leaves the ground. Always aware of his situation. Always wins. He’ll take four guys who aren’t very good players and still find a way to win. The only difference is Andre Miller does it at the highest level.”

Kind of an instinct

Alone in the left corner, Miller receives the pass in his shooting stance, selling it enough for a Cleveland defender to lunge. “Miller, a beeline on the baseline,” the broadcaster says. Suddenly, Miller slams the brakes and thrusts the ball in the air with both hand around the ball. Marreese Speights, checkbook in hand, buys the head fake. With Speights out of the way, Miller then shoots, and makes, the lay-in amid the trees.

“And,” the broadcaster says, “he’s fouled.”

• • •

Miller was old school even when he was new school. Karl remembers when Miller dominated in college at Utah, back in the late 1990s, playing for a dear friend of both men, the late Rick Majerus.

“He wasn’t a guy where you say, ‘Whoa, this athlete!’ ” Karl said. “What you saw was a guy who just knew how to win basketball games with his instincts and feel.”

When Miller shoots, he leans forward, ever so slightly, and hoists the ball, looking more like a soccer player about to unleash a throw-in. And on his jump shots, does he even jump? It doesn’t appear so.

What the 6-foot-2, 200-pound Miller has is brilliant body control. And strength. He works his body much like Adrian Dantley, the 1980s star who famously utilized his backside to back down defenders. It has become a joke around the Nuggets that Miller is the team’s best low-post player.

When he drives, he’s sometimes in first gear, other times in fifth. It depends on his read of the defense. And when he releases his layup attempt in stride, he finger flings the ball so fast that the big men have a hard time timing it. Naturally, he has mastered the up-and-under, reverse layup. And the head fake? It pays the bills.

“Everybody uses a knack, kind of an instinct, trying to keep the big men off balance from blocking shots,” Miller said. “Sometimes it works. Sometimes you get your shot blocked.”

“He’s a ground dweller”

At the top of the key, Miller brushes off a help defender and is greeted at the left elbow by the seemingly confident Courtney Lee. (Good position! Knees bent! Body square!) But Miller pounds one dribble and then — whoosh! — spins into the lane, rendering Boston’s Lee helpless. Only problem is, there’s Kevin Garnett. But Miller is fearless. He goes right at K.G. with a little up-and-under layup … with his left hand.

“Wow, nice play,” the broadcaster says.

“Sure was,” says his partner.

• • •

It’s all about the feet. Miller is a basketball ballerina. The good ones are. They have the footwork necessary to elude defenders with spin moves and shuffles and stutter steps.

“Paul Pierce, Kobe Bryant, the footwork is incredible,” Hunt said. “The difference with ‘Dre is, he tricks you on the floor and he scores on the floor. His spin is the exact same as Kobe, you could put them on a split screen — if you stop the tape before the finish. Because Kobe is going to put his elbow by the rim, where ‘Dre is going to groundhog you — he’s a ground dweller.”

Nuggets assistant coach Patrick Mutombo, listening to Hunt, screams, “It’s all an illusion!” What he means is that Miller is an illusionist, using his feet and fakes to make a defender leap in the air. Miller is staying on the floor.

According to the stat site Synergy, 18.1 percent of Miller’s possessions are in isolation, and Miller ranks in the 91st percentile in regard to efficiency in those scenarios. The site denotes that as “excellent.”

Always two steps ahead

This time, he’s alone in the right corner. The crowd, realizing Denver is two points from 110 (and a discounted lunch the next day), chants “We want tacos!” Gallinari is penetrating from the left wing. Miller spots an opening in the paint but circles his route so he’s coming from out of bounds under the basket. Gallo finds Miller, who swiftly places the ball in the basket with his left hand.

“Andre Miiiiiiller!” the broadcaster says. “And there it is!”

• • •

Zach Lowe of Grantland.com is one of the premier basketball writers in the country, and Lowe likes to call Andre Miller “Professor Miller,” a man who has earned his Ph.D. at PGU (Point Guard University).

Many folks inside the game, from team executives to media members, appreciate Miller’s game in a way that the casual fan does not, seeing him up close, and watching film frames like they’re some sort of Scorsese.

“Miller is the reason every NBA fan needs to invest in a DVR,” Lowe recently wrote. “And not even because of the lob passes, long the best in the business, and propping up JaVale McGee’s career for the last year. It is astonishing what Professor Miller can see in real time, with nine other guys darting around a crowded court.

“He is always two steps ahead of opponents and teammates, in ways that are easy to miss on first watch. But when you slow down the tape, you can see Miller doing this kind of calculation: ‘If I pause mid-dribble, hesitate, and then take one extra dribble into the paint, Defender A will shift to Spot X, which allows Teammate B to get open in Spot Y, which in turn will draw Defender B, which in turn will free Teammate C, who likely has no idea what is about to happen.’ It is like a perfect geometric proof during an NBA game.”

Miller is not Magic. He has flaws. His defense is average. He no longer is a starter, though he would prefer to be and, while this isn’t necessarily all his fault, he has never been on a team that won a playoff series. But there’s a reason Karl has called him a top-five all-time pure point guard, because he plays like he’s some sort of hoops hybrid of a floor general, coach, chess master and rec center staple.

“He continues to prove that there’s got to be some other things to it besides speed and quickness,” Karl said. “There’s got to be creativity, cleverness and the ability to change speeds. That’s sometimes more important than how fast you are.

“I don’t know how long he’ll play, but he thinks he can play another five or six years. But his game right now, he knows how to play, and he knows how to win.”

Benjamin Hochman was a sports columnist for The Denver Post until August 2015 before leaving for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his hometown newspaper. Hochman previously worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for its Hurricane Katrina coverage. Hochman wrote the Katrina-themed book “Fourth and New Orleans,” published in 2007.

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